laf u16

[Great Players]

Both those girls were great players, #28 stood out more so than #3. Does anyone know their names, I would love to follow their careers in the future.

[College sports]

Has anyone looked into who paid the English players' airfare, room and board etc? Did they pay club dues like the rest of the players? Or were they treated like professional players?

Are the English players in violation of NCAA rules? Will the other players be penalized from NCAA teams if the English players are in violation? Does anyone know these rules?

[guest 10]

laf gives "SCHOLARSHIPS'' to players who can't afford to play. after paying airfare, expenses and room and board i bet these poor under priviledged girls needed a scholarship. laf gives new meaning to poor sportsmanship. i feel sorry for the girls on the team, they must be so ashamed of their coach and the director. and do you think the coach gave any thought to the players whose positions were taken away so the GOOD players could play?

[MONEY]

Money? What about the parents who paid all year to tournaments, travel dues probably $5,000 and then there child sat the bench while some foreign players may have been catered to? How could the parents, team manager, coach, director or club allow this?

WIN AT ALL COST! THAT'S HOW.


The rest of Lafreniere teams should be worried about next year. Will your child be the one to sit the bench when the replacement players come in at the end of the season? Time to look for another club.

[Unbelievable]

I have never seen a club willing to do anything to win. If my daughter was on that team and our club pulled this trick, we would not have showed up at the game. What were the parents thinking, allowing this to go on after paying a ton of money and lots of practices and games, then watching your daughter sit the bench for the state cup. I have an idea for Lafreniere for next year. Maybe you can get some of players from the National team to guarantee you a win. You probably have already thought of this!

[SoccerPlr]

When will the Lafreniere board wake up and see what Kenny Farrell has and is doing to your club. Lafreniere use to be the model club for everyone else---start a player in their great rec program and groom them to advance to the premier level. Now Kenny very rarely goes to rec, but he does go to other clubs to steal good players.
Lafreniere---get back to basics!!

I think that its over, that nothing can be done about it. maybe it was low, but i think that Laf has a pretty good team anyway, and MOST lIKELY would have done just as well. i think that if csa could handle 1 of the players and completely shut her down in prelims, Lafayette should have been able to do it too, seeing Lafayette did beat them(meaning CSA, no comment on that game though) .........but u know, there's nothing that can be done now. *and theres nothing illegal about having the girls play, as long as they are on the roster b4 the freeze date

[Alex Ferguson]

You'll all wrong. You're all very very narrow minded too. Let me lay down the law to you baseball, basketball, and american football bourne people. A club's essential wish is to groom players from level one, up to the highest level possible for the club, and then beyond too. Players who have been groomed in America, have been groomed in a very unsophisticated way, all the same. There's no edge, no sharpness, no player that can create something out of nothing against players with higher athletic capabilities. There's no 'burning ambition' with Louisiana players that makes them think about football with every decision they have to make. However, in Louisiana that is the highest level. So coaches think, 'ah...we need to advance our players further, so that they can compete on all stages, and make them stand out much further, and give them something unique to hold onto whilst playing in the future. All you people think that the end of this tournament is the end of football for these players. Not at all. It is in the clubs best interest to 'groom players from level one, up to the highest level possible for the club, and then beyond too', so by getting special players, like players from England, to play with your homemade players, the homemade players have something higher to aim at. Attracting new players makes it more interesting, gives homegrown players more incentive. Yall need to open your eyes a lot more, and see the whole picture.

[Hey Mr Ferguson]

You're "logic" has one major flaw - the english players were bought and flown in just prior to the state tournament for the sole purpose of winning a Lousiana state championship for the Lafriniere club - and flew out the next day. I agree that players with superior skills - regardless of their national origin - are good for the "local" girls, i.e. they see players at the next level and strive to match that skill. But this wasn't the case here. It was for the purpose of satisfying the "adult" leadership of the club who evidently knew their club couldn't do it on their own.
On a much larger scale, concerning the "American" girls having been groomed in an unsophisticated manner - are you aware of the American women's succes vs. Great Britain on an international level. The U.K. got a 2 or 3 hundred year head start and in the last 10 years the U.S.A. has surpassed the English, Scottish, Irish and/or Welsh. So get off your high horse, get educated and don't preach about being "narrow minded".
You were obviously "bourne" in the U.K. but don't know crap obout futbol.

[guest 10]

hey ferguson new flash who do you think has trained these american girls at lafreniere? maybe some brits?? quit making excuses.

[Proud Rage Member]

In regards to Mr. Ferguson's reply he would have felt much different if he had a daughter who played on the Rage team. The Rage members worked their butts off all year practicing with their OWN team to make it where they got. Gold or silver they know they got there without any outside help other than the dedication of their OWN coaches and teammates.

[USYS]

LOUISIANA WILL DECLARE A REAL U16 GIRLS STATE CHAMPION THIS WEEKEND.


When Lafayette and Mandeville play this weekend the Louisiana state champion will be determined.

When USYS finishes reviewing the illegal importation of players to only play in a state tournament and not participate as a member of the team Lafreniere will be ruled to forfeit the games the ineligble players participated in.

For those who know it all--read the rules and talk to the people at USYS who are handling this issue.

[HHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA]

Guest-USYS said:

illegal importation of players

My word, you make it sound like a crime now!!

[Matt Busby]

Let me start off like this. If coaches dont have the confidence in their own players to win, it means that the players arent good enough, so the quality of your players is obviously crap.

The 'adult leaders' of these clubs probably dont care what yall think anyway. They've won the cup, and at the end of the day, they won it by playing the better football. It's not even dirty tactics, whereby you try and injure the opposition. It's not even time wasting, where you hold the ball by the opposite corner flag. It's just players wanting to play football. That's all.

Now let me tell all of you something that you dont know, and you had better read, and read good. Football life in England. Girls soccer in England is growing, but very slowly. You dont see girls playing in parks, you dont see girls playing on street corners. You dont see girls play in school. School is completely different in England. You go to school to get an education in England, thats all. If you want to become professional, you dont go to school and a club will sign you up you're good enough. It's not like you play in middle school, then high school, then college, then you're looked at by professionals, it not like that at all in England. At the age of 7, you have to make a decision, and stick by it. Either you say, im going to try and make it as a footballer and im not going to worry about education, or you go the education way, knowing that nobody can take knowledge away from you, and you'll be able to support yourself in the future. So girls who go to school, and maybe play in p.e. lessons or something, they dont have many tournaments to go and play in. In their lives, if they want to play football, they bloody well can, even if it not in England. Clubs think like this, and they say, 'yeah, come on, come and play for us', thinking that they're being a good samaratan. I dont see anything wrong with that. The only thing to come out of the fact of why the english girls did so well is that your own standard is very very low.

Stop chewing on sour grapes, and also, i alugh at the fact that you think you know more about this game than me. However, i thank you for the comedy.

To be honest, hard work is the key. If a player has worked harder than another, then that player deserves to be picked, regardless of their nationality. It's obvious that these english girls worked harder and thus were chosen, and thus won it. Nothing wrong with that.

If these english players had crap games and didnt have an influence at all, then you would definitely have a case for saying, 'why are these rubbish players in for our own?'. And you wouldnt be saying anything if they had scored an own goal. This means that you're only bringing this up because you lost, poor losers.

Football is a team game. Ask the players on the bench. Would they rather have played and lost in a final, or would they rather be part of winning team, and celebrate collectively? You tell me, and if you are going to answer my critiques, you'd better know what you're talking about.

[Why wait]

This thread started on Sunday 18th of May. Considering how strongly everyone feels on this issue, why wasn't all these objections brought to LSA before now.
If everyone has such a big problem, why didn't they bring it up to LSA on Monday May 12th, the day after the preliminary games. I believe the girls played that weekend didn't they?

If you believed it was an ineligible player couldn't you have put up $200.00 to protest the games, right then and there, and have everything stopped until a national ruling was made??

Get involved rather than just complaining. I'm sure of all of these complaining people, none of them are directly involved with running of their Clubs or the State Association. They just want to complain, not make a difference.

[Lafreniere Parent]

Iam a member of the Lafreniere Club and am disgusted with the tactics this club will go to for a State Title. It is common knowledge that these girls are not coming back for Regionals. Please do not lump all of the Lafreniere teams and parents into the category the U-16 girls and U-14 or U-15 Boys team have fallen. Some of us think what they did is wrong and very unsportsmanlike.

[Not helping the LA program]

These girls coming here apparently was to help the U-16 girls team, which they did. But as for them raising the level of play in Louisiana, I think they came over with one purpose in mind, to be seen by College Coaches and hopefully recruited to play in the US. They didn't care about a State title. The carrot dangled in front of them was to be seen by some coaches. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't have a profile that was handed out to a few of the coaches that attended and the history that Mr. Busby gives will support this.

I JUST WANT TO WISH EVERYONE THE BEST!!!
HOPE ALL PLAYERS CAN FOCUS ON THEIR GAME.
PLAY HARD, BE SAFE AND HAVE FUN - NO MATTER
WHAT YOU MAY FEEL STANDS IN YOUR WAY.
POSITIVE ATTITUDES WILL GET YOU FURTHER THAN NEGATIVE ATTITUDES.

[questions]

These are for Mr.Busby. Since you imply know so much (and we also care so much that you do), you must be able to answer my questions. I have no idea who you are, if Mr.Busby is your real name, or anything about you.

1) Since when is it ok to have soccer come before and education for girls? in england it is. what a great example these players set for their fellow teamates at lafr.

2) you say that "the only thing to come out of the fact of why the english girls did so well is that your own standard is very very low". i have a question, maybe the reason they did so well is because they could possibly be national players? FROM ENGLAND. soccer is their life. soccer comes first. therefore if you are from england and a national player, you must be good. You obviously don't think that highly of them. Whats your standard? So high that you have to come onto a LA website about U-16 girls, and proclaim to everyone your knowledge and threaten anyone who disagrees?

Sir, I've tried to see things from your point of view. But frankly, I can't bend my body into that position.

[Name Check]

Hey Busby - Didn't catch your middle name - Oh yea, I remember now "Vain".